News & Events

Theft Arrest

October 10, 2013

Category: Press Releases

Date and Time of Release: 10 October 2013

Date and Time of Incident: 9 October 2013

Subject: Theft Arrest
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4 October 2013, a subject came to the Sonora Police Department and reported that someone had stolen his credit card out of his vehicle, while parked in the Wal-Mart parking lot. The victim further related that his stolen credit card had been used at numerous businesses in the Sonora area.

Officers reviewed surveillance video from Wal-Mart and some other locations where the stolen credit card was used. Officers were able to determine the suspects were a male and a female. Officers were also able to identify the suspect’s vehicle as an early model Dodge Durango, tan in color, with stickers on the back window.

9 October 2013, at approx. 8:20 am, an investigator observed the suspect vehicle southbound on N. Washington Street, near Yaney Street. The investigator stopped the vehicle and contacted the driver, who was identified as Chad Hilton, 27 of Mi Muk. Hilton matched the male subject seen in the surveillance videos stealing the credit card and then using it.

A search of Hilton’s vehicle revealed; property purchased with the stolen credit card; the victims stolen credit card; counterfeit ten and twenty dollar bills; a large amount of mail with several different individuals names on it; identification cards and credit cards in several different people’s names, some of which had been intercepted in the mail and not yet activated; and smoking pipes with methamphetamine residue.

Hilton was taken into custody without incident. He was transported to the Tuolumne County Jail and booked for felony possession of stolen property, felony possession of fictitious money, felony personating another to obtain money or property, misdemeanor theft, and misdemeanor possession of drug paraphernalia.